Vice Magazine(has a lot to answer for)

Since it's creation way back in 1996 where it broke with it's government funded origins as the Voice of Montreal, moved to New York and changed it's name. Vice magazine has been known for it's provocative use of irreverence and immersion journalism and covering everything from the war in Iraq to mental disorders. Whilst pre 2007 vice dedicated whole issues to these subjects, post 2007 vice has become even more wide ranging and now covers even more subjects under the umbrella of popular culture and information technology. The online home of Vice magazine is a curiosity in itself, the home page is divided into various sections on the right is the do's and don't section where innocent (and admittedly not so innocent) members of the public are harshly critiqued by Vice in regards to their fashion sense and perceived outlook on life. Below that is a link to information about the print magazine and below is an events section which links you to the old blue last web page.useful.

In the middle of the page are recent vice articles which when I last checked involved selling post-it art, The Vice guide to Liberia, which is actually going to be a documentary film based on interviews with three men who participated in the 14 year Liberia civil war and a piece attacking that previously untouchable institution, the high brow music award. On the left there are also links to the music, film and photo blog which seems to cover trendy London party goers and tits same thing though right? LOLOLOLOLOL.

One thing that seems to have landed Vice in hot water over the years is the Vice Guides, those tongue in cheek looks at various aspects of life including sex, finding yourself and shagging Muslims which admittedly I could kind of see would cause a little controversy, but actually raises some interesting points...no really. Most of them are pretty funny and I have to admit..for me anyway the guide to being totally crushed out did have some parallels with my life, but with less drugs...and rock and roll...and se...oh wait.

So when it comes to covering popular culture you could probably do worse, although it might be best avoided if you're easily offended but then that's probably like 90% of the internet down the drain already.

In which I 'review' the current livejournal spotlight communities

Livejournal Communities: once an important internet

force to be reckoned with. Now: everyone just uses

Blogger. Or something. I don't even know. I use it

daily, but only forfashin. Even though though I'm not

lying, you're probably thinking "She's lying. No one

outside of the Sci-Fi community uses it". But then

again, I'm a pretty big Sci-Fi fan myself. What am I

saying? What I'm trying to say is, believe it or not,

other people actually use it.

Sorry.

Anyway, on with the reviews.

note_to_cat

It's a bit pointless really, because cats can't read. Sorry.

foundphotos

Really good but I don't like the layout. Sorry.

bookfails

If i ever wrote a blog, it would be like this. Well, maybe

just the really angry posts - the other ones are boring.

Sorry.

My Week In Links #4

Hooray, this week Please Get Off The Internet reaches it's one month anniversary and to celebrate, this week will involve more nonsensical quotes and less actual information about my online browsing habits.

This week I:

- Am very excited about new records from Rolo Tomassi and Kayo Dot in 2010, I thought Blue Lambency Downwards was good but still a bit sketchy in places, previously if an artist said a segment of music wouldn't make sense out of context I'd probably think they were being pretentious but with Kayo Dot such a statement makes perfect sense. Rolo Tomassi's Vice London show looks like it'll be a blast come December.

- Debunked the top ten myths according to Listverse, I actually feel a bit annoyed by the Darwin one since that's something I should probably have known all along.

- Am looking at the stars. They are so far away, and their light takes so long to reach us. All we ever see of stars is their old photographs.

- Had a listen to the BRNLV 10 mixtape which has some big contenders when it comes to picking albums of the year personally I think that Mount Eerie record is HUGE.

- Read a courageous/insane attempt at writing 100 poems in one day.

- Developed my collection of apps with additions from lifehackers 61 free apps they're most thankful for. Everything in particular was useful for providing lightning quick searches for missing files and Pidgin provides a neat cross platform IM alternative for msn aside from it's unfortunate lack of webcam support but who uses those anyway?

This entry was brought to you by the letter F for Faux Pas, who has very kindly put his latest single the seriously cosmic 'Silver Line' up for download over on his blog. It reminds a little of latter day Air but with whimsical chill out elements replaced with shimmering synthesizers and reinforced with throbbing bass set to stun.

Listverse

Making top ten lists is something I've done for as long as I can remember, it's a fun way to pass the time and can help you reminisce about your favourite tv programs for example my top ten scrubs moments, I'd actually struggle to do this but the JD and Turk drum line would be somewhere up in the top 5, oh and 'betrayal five' would definitely be in there too.

Because of this I found that Listverse, a website focused purely around lists of trivia from a variety of different sources is pretty fascinating, although perhaps it really shouldn't be. But where else can I read about the top ten unusual cat breeds *spoiler* the number one choice isn't Siamese but it is possibly the scariest thing I've seen since The Thing it doesn't even look real, more like one of those creatures that would feed on humans on some god forgotten planet in a futuristic sci-fi horror film.

Other favourites are the top 10 Bizarre Tourist Attractions which include the dictator inspired Neutrality Arch, a life sized depiction of the great battle of Sekigahara featuring life sized depictions of mutilation and ritual suicide and a house featuring around 2,100 real painted skulls.

This isn't to say Listverse isn't without it's flaws the top 10 genres of Extreme Music coming across as not only slightly uninformed but the inclusion of 'Political Hip Hop' seems head scratchingly odd particularly when the first paragraph highlights the fact that many artists who could be said to have formed the roots of todays modern hip-hop came from a highly politicized background.

This aside there's plenty of other lists on the site to both entertain and inform and chances are provide the answer to that elusive pub quiz question and as per usual there's space under each list to debate inclusions or exclusions on the latest list addition.

Keytars and Violins

Maybe it's due to my own personal lack of knowledge on the subject or perhaps it's simply the vast amount of material that is covered under it's umbrella, but dance music can often feel like a fairly difficult genre to inroads into. This is probably what makes Keytars and Violins so essential as it covers such a wide variety of different sounds all of which could collectively be described as dance music, alongside some other non dance orientated music.

Over the time I've been reading K/V, about 6 months which is only a small segment of it's 3 year history, I've heard everything from deep Detroit techno to deliciously dark electro and garage tinged dubstep and there are heaps of downloadable mp3s to sample some of the sounds on offer.

One of the recent highlights was Nathan Fake's glitchy 'We Fear Silence' mix is available over on mixcloud

Or you can download it here.

Get it before the RIAA get you colonclosedbracket*.

*May not actually result in being tracked down by the RIAA

Recycle This

Whilst the Climate Change debate rages on and
on, I think both sides would agree on the benefits
of recycling rather than letting things go to waste.
So the question is where to start? Sure you can
put your biodegradable waste into those miniature
grey plastic bins or into the compost heap. You
can drink from biodegrable corn oil based plastic
bottles and you can put your paper into a
recycling bin but what about your old clothes and
worn out shoes.

picture from recyclethis.co.uk

Recycle this, suggests all sorts of novel uses for
items that would usually be thrown away from
regluing and repairing battered canvas shoes, to
fixing old waterproof trousers with hairspray (no
really). A large portion of the content is reader
generated to enable people to pool ideas and it's
interesting how innovative people can be in their
desire to cut down on waste. Turning coffee
grounds into candles has to be one of my
favourite examples.

The site is also developed using free and open
source software and all images used on the site
are available under the creative commons act.
Which is nice... if you care about that sort of
thing.

My Week In Links #3

This week I:

- Downloaded the free mp3 single by the American dream-pop duo Beach House. It kind of reminds me of M83 without all the in your face bombast. Well worth a listen.

- Downloaded Lucky Dragons' Anti War Song album 'Hawk and Sparrows' which also features contributions from Aa and comes across sort of like an immersive collection of soundscapes made from heavily edited field recordings of anti war protests but morphed from their original incarnation into something entirely new. It's also totally free from here.

- Downlo....er wait I mean discovered Listverse's top ten methods of execution, the brazen bull is pretty horrible but the sawing image gets to me the most eugh.

- Realized the true secret to Microsoft's success brightly coloured t-shirts and the electric slide.

- Rediscovered Sesame Street, you know your show has made it when it's being parodied on Sesame Street congratulations Mad Men.

- Had my first glimpse at the Google Chrome OS, it looks a little like that modified version of xandros which I saw on the EEE pc, but much more colourful, I have to admit..I'm intrigued.

- Still don't get the fuss behind Google Wave...but for all those interested Lifehacker are running a weekly invitations thread.

This entry is brought to you by the letter W for Wavves who seems to have been annoying and thrilling audiences in equal numbers, whilst I was disappointed to hear that Zach Hill couldn't make it for the latest tour I'm just happy to get the chance to nod my head along to 'So Bored'.